So that was just the first TechCrunch40, we are assured.
The format was great. I don't remember a conference of that scale that gave start-ups top-billing. And the fact that there was a winner, however manufactured the whole process felt, meant there was none of that sneaking off after lunch on the last day which happens at so many conferences. The room was buzzing all through, even with the hangovers on Tuesday morning, and by the time we gathered to hear the announcement about the winner at the end we'd reached fever pitch.
Low points were the presentation by Broadclip, who replaced a real-life presentation with a prerecorded presentation - half of which was narrated by a silly voice speaking over the Star Wars theme. Either they'd bottled it completely, or thought they would try something clever. Either way they failed, and prompted Jason Calacanis to say there would be a clarification of the rules next year.
If that wasn't enough, their recording-and-searching-web-radio product was completely panned too - and by no less than Don Dodge, former vice president of Napster. He said the legality (or not) of recording radio streams would, without doubt, get them closed down at some point. So that was that.
For entertainment we had not only Jaon and Mike Arrington sparring, each of them claiming that whatever went well was their idea and the mistakes belonged to the other, and the NotTechCrunch40 Twitter feed scandal; a mystery Twitterer began posting very snarky tweets about the conference under the name "TechCrunch40". Twitter - whose co-founder Ev Williams was speaking on the panel - went in to the admin of the feed and changed the name to NotTechCrunch40, prompting the mystery Twitterer to go off on one.
Who stood out for me?
Everyone will say this now, of course, but Mint.com stood out straight away and totally deserved to win. For much of the Dragons Den-style conference we were really feeling for these entrepreneurs who have sweated blood for their baby businesses, and faced pretty much the toughest product demonstration imaginable. Not just a couple of investors, but a room full of them, your peers and journalists. That's a very tough gig and the nerves were palpable.
Aaron Patzer, Mint's founder, didn't need amateur dramatics or some ropey glamour models on stage. He was professional, confident, engaging and the product spoke for itself. I tried to sign up straight away (if anyone needs money management, it's me) but it won't launch in the UK until next year, alas.
I loved Jiglu too, so all credit to the UK team that flew over for this. Jiglu automates tagging in your blog posts. Great idea.
If there's one unifying theme, it is aggregation. The majority of these services brought together information form different places to make it easier to manage, whether than be your bank balance like Mint or your social networking proflies like mEgo.
I'm off to see Craig Craigslist and Michael and Xochi Birch, founders of Bebo. More later...
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